Learning outside the box: Community-School programming beyond school walls

If you visit Surrey’s Central City Shopping Centre on the first and third Wednesdays of the month between 10 am and noon, you’ll see some delightful early learning in the works. A large space near the entrance of Winners is transformed into a vibrant kid-friendly area. Play mats, toys, picture books, play dough, and other colourful objects and activities attract the curious toddler, and tempt parents out on a shopping trip to stop—and play. Parents stopping to play with their kids is indeed what Chinu Das, one of United Way’s planners, observed when she attended a recent launch event in mid-February celebrating this new early learning program. An initiative of the Community-Schools Partnership (C-SP), which  United Way helps to fund, Early Learning for Families brings engaging and innovative C-SP programming outside the walls of the school. The intent: to engage young kids in play-based learning and connect parents to community resources and services they might not know about, like the StrongStart program located at a number of Surrey schools. Says Pat Horstead, assistant superintendent of the Surrey School District who leads the C-SP department, “We thought, if [parents are] not coming to us, we would go to them and show them what we offer….We know that when children have an early experience of education they do better at school and have a better chance of success.” United Way is a founding partner of the Surrey Community-Schools Partnership, established in 2007. Our involvement was fundamental: we linked schools with local agencies, identified other funding opportunities, assisted in hiring the coordinating team, and provided long-term funding to support development and expansion.